During the strike a significant amount of conflict occurred, first with the private armed militia hired by the company and the strikers, and later with the Kentucky National Guard after Governor Morrow would call them in, including eventually the use of Tank Corps.

Union men Thursday denied propaganda which is being spread in Newport and Northern Kentucky that snipers have been stationed in houses in the 'strike zone' and the moonshine whiskey flows freely.

W. B. Harvey[vii] also sent letters to both to the union and Newport Rolling Mill Co. offering to help hold negotiations between representatives each side selects with meeting to allow the public to attend.

[24] At one point when troop officers neared the plant, a women confronted the Adjutant General Jackson Morris with tears streaming down here face, she cried out:[28] "You have brought men and machine guns to kill us.

There Morris said they would permit two union men to be at the gates leading into the mill, changing shifts as often as they wanted and that they could gather in the huts nearby to the plant, since they were on private property.

Then, after seeing a guard armed with a shotgun patrolling the Newport bank, taunts were shouted and one of the suspected strikers reportedly lowered their revolver, leveling it at the mill and fired.

[49] In a letter released the day before by the union they stated, "The question of principle that is involved - the surrendering of our rights to be members of the Amalgamated Associations - cannot be arbitrated, and we reaffirm our stand on the signing of any agreement that might be negotiated or arrived at by collective bargaining.

[50] According the Industrial Worker, reporting on January 14, in response to the constant firing strikers had constructed blockhouses near their pickets and coated them with sheet iron to protect them from stray bullets.

[80] On February 4 Fred Sloan, a member of the union (AA), gave a speech at Music Hall[o] to a large crowd urging that petitions be circulated calling upon Gov.

[80][79] The same day Governor Morrow arrived in Cincinnati to confer with a select delegation of Newport citizens, cancelling a speaking engagement he had planned at Louisville in order to do so.

[81][82] Another account of the event mentions the conflict beginning as a result of troops attempting to disperse a crowd of 600 at 9th & Brighton, opposite the mill entrance, trying force the picketers behind a "dead line", initially clubbing them with their rifles when they refused and then shooting.

Writing also, "Your letter, however convinces me that the information upon which you relied grossly misrepresented and exaggerated conditions here..." He further continued when discussing the use of tanks:[81] "At best they can never be more than instruments of slaughter on a battlefield, and used on the streets of a city do more damage to the innocent and helpless than in stopping disorder.

[46] On February 8, The woman's auxiliary of Amalgamated Association Iron, Steel and Tinworkers met to organize more member and draft a group letter to be sent to Congressman Arthur B.

Rouse condemning the sending of state guards,[85] "Martial law has been thrust upon them by the capitalists, sympathizers and the most unjust accusations flung in their faces by the paid press.

510 Loyal Order of Moose, criticized the national Guard for, "[the] tyrannical exercise of the spirit and power of military despotism" and to end the "mistreatment, intimidation, abuse and arrest of citizens, without warrants,".

[104] The Newport Rolling Mill, started handing out eviction notices that day to strikers living in company houses, offering tenants a receipt in full for any back rent owed, ie.

They charged, on March 15 soldiers appeared at the headquarters and said if they continued to hold their meetings, given that either Edward Miller or James Phillip, union officers, the militia would harm them.

[116] On March 17, Louis Tieman, Campbell County Sheriff reporting that he was having difficulty locating Col. Denhardt to serve him a copy of the injunction to enjoing soldiers from harassing workers at their headquarters.

The central committee planed to send a group to Chicago, as the Garment Workers of America wanted to contribute several thousand dollars to the strike fund.

The company had the men sign an agreement that their railroad fare taken out of wages unless they worked fr at least three months, as a result the workers had to put in several week otherwise they would leave indebted.

John P. Nagel, former Campbell county sheriff who was arrested on similar charges of conspiracy was dismissed by Judge Oscar H. Roetken, US Commissioner, as not guilty Monday morning, March 27.

"Arthur Hall, consul for the defendants suggested that the district attorney should apologize to his client Mayor Hermann, claiming they had prevented a riot at the rolling mill during the labor conflict.

If the government is going to punish men for saving lives and for doing more than a their full duty, I want to know it right now so we lawyers will know how to act,"By March 30, more than 4000 signatories had been secured for the petition asking for the removal of the National Guard from Newport.

"A editorial on the strike up to this point heavily criticized the continued presence of militia, "Extending its jurisdiction, it threatens to become a censor of liberties, a monitor of society, a municipal dictator."

[150][151] On April 26, Lawrence J. Diskin, commonwealth attorney appeal to drop the evidence obtained by national guards during their February raids on the basis that it was a violation of the Newport citizens constitutional rights as they were done without search warrants.

“That so many men could have stood the winter without giving in shows how much we think of the principle for which we are fighting... Labor ‘depends for its life on the closed shop and interesting developments can be expected from the convention touching on the Newport situation.”On May 30, the ten special policemen who were previously sworn into duty were set to be dismissed, as W. C. Thomasson stated they were no longer needed.

Ed Miller president of Union Local 5. had managed to get in contact with the labor leaders of the AFL, and urged them to hold an open-air meeting in Newport to show their support.

[160] The meeting was opened by Michael F. Tighe President of the steel union; Of the strike, his paraphrased statements were as follows: that seldom have civilized people been compelled to submit to the treatment that the strikers had received in the past year in Newport, and that he criticized Gov.

After his speech, Marshall Martin of the Blacksmith's journal spoke, he urged strikers not give up and that he criticized the ministers who has signed the telegram previously asking Morrow to send troops.

In the 1922 Annual Report, the chief of Militia Bureau stated their concerns,[172] "Emergency duty in a strike area is the most disagreeable feature of National Guard service.